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About a hundred yards off lay a small, swift cruiser-raider, and above her floated the German man-of-war's flag. A boat had just been lowered, and I could see it moving toward us filled with officers and men. The cruiser lay dead ahead. "My," I thought, "what a wonderful targ " I stopped even thinking, so surprised and shocked was I by the boldness of my imagery. The girl was just below me.
As we were sitting smoking, a tap was heard at the door. Old Growler went to it. Several questions were asked by a person outside. He came back in a hurry, and beckoned to his wife to come and answer them. "There are some man-of-war's men outside," said he. "They say that they are come to look for a deserter. They'll soon make my missus open the door, so you've no time to lose, my lads.
The old man-of-war's man was probably the nobler being of the two; and if I had had to choose between them, I should no doubt have chosen him. But I had not to choose between them; I had only to think about them; and I thought a great deal more about the one I could not understand than the one I could understand.
But Spike's projects were not yet completed. All this time the man-of-war's cutter had been rushing as madly through the breakers, in chase, as the yawl had done in the attempt to escape. Mulford was, in fact, on board it; and his now fast friend, Wallace, was in command. The latter wished to seize a traitor, the former to save the aunt of his weeping bride.
I have it from good authority that the order was not given to the marines on the man-of-war's poop to fire at the plucky little craft who had so fairly out-manœuvred the cruiser, for out-manœuvred she was to all intents and purposes.
"Unless disposed to serve the Queen, you have not done well, my friend, to brave one of her commanders at the muzzles of his guns." observed the Patroon, so soon as the state of the case became too evident to doubt of the intentions of the man-of-war's men.
Hence it comes that the skulkers and scoundrels of all sorts in a man-of-war are chiefly composed not of regular seamen, but of these "dock-lopers" of landsmen, men who enter the Navy to draw their grog and murder their time in the notorious idleness of a frigate. But if so idle, why not reduce the number of a man-of-war's crew, and reasonably keep employed the rest? It cannot be done.
The man-of-war's boat had no chance of overhauling the quicker and lighter Peruvian gig and when the Chileans reached the sloop, they abandoned the chase. On discovering the prize they had taken, cheer after cheer rang over the sea. The sloop was loaded down with baskets of fruit, crates of chickens, vegetables, in fact the very things the Chileans mostly needed.
"She will never go to the bottom with all the soft wood she has in her," said a sailor who was old and grizzled and had the bearing of a man-of-war's man. "She can't sink for months. The water is up to her lower deck already." "So that's the reason you were not getting your boats out in a hurry?" I asked.
The schooner, I knew, had ten guns on board, and the pirates would be able so to place her as to offer a stout resistance, if not to defeat the man-of-war's boats completely. Four of the brig's boats were sent away, to which was added the one in which I had been taken; so that there was a pretty strong flotilla engaged in the expedition.
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